As a new and emerging research area, computer games demand the development
of new theoretical frameworks for research and analysis. In addition to the
specific requirements of a new medium, the advent and rapidly rising popularity
of multiplayer computer gaming creates further challenges for researchers when
the text under analysis forms a locus for human interaction ? structuring
and mediating communication between large numbers of people, and spawning social
practices and identifications within a cultural economy extending beyond the
game itself. While multiplayer gaming practices develop within existing social,
cultural, technological and economic structures, they are also producing significant
shifts within these structures.

Here I will be discussing the gaming practices surrounding multiplayer, first-person
shooter (FPS) computer games such as Quake III Arena and Half-Life
Counter-Strike. Since the mid-1990s, a large and remarkably cohesive online
community has developed around these games, involving hundreds of thousands
of players, with up to 100,000 FPS gamers actively playing online at any one
time (http://www.gamespy.com/stats,
Mar 5, 2003). In addition to actual gameplay, the FPS community engages in practices
of game development, criticism, commentary, debate, information exchange, file-sharing
and social organisation. Online access to open-source game development tools,
the provision of venues for distribution and publicity of player-generated game
content and modifications, the use of the online community in game testing,
and increased communication between game development companies and players are
currently shifting the boundaries between the traditional roles of media producers
and consumers and changing the ways in which these games are made. Study of
the practices surrounding multiplayer FPS games can provide insight into new
and emerging models of media production, consumption and distribution, play,
community formation and challenges to existing structures of social and economic
power.

A Brief History of FPS Games and the Development of Community

In 1992, the first FPS game, Wolfenstein 3-D was developed by a group
of six young game designers working out of a one-bedroom loft apartment in Mesquite,
Texas. Wolfenstein 3-D was innovative in both game design and distribution.
It was the first shooting game for the PC to use a first-person point-of-view
and early 3D technology to create for the player a sense of immersion in a three-dimensional
space, and stood out in a gaming world populated by the platform games of Sega
and Nintendo console systems. As shareware, Wolfenstein 3-D was distributed
for free on bulletin board systems (BBS) and by floppy disk, and proliferated
on network environments such as those in business and educational institutions
and the (pre-World Wide Web) Internet.

In December 1993, Wolfenstein 3-D?s developers, now known as
id Software, released Doom, also initially as a shareware download (15 million
copies of Doom are estimated to have been circulated worldwide since).
Doom was revolutionary and culturally significant in that it was multiplayer
(up to four players could play via LAN, serial connection or telephone lines)
and the id developers made the unprecedented move of releasing the game?s
source code to the public. This allowed gamers to make modified versions of
the game, customising landscapes and game models, and creating new levels and
even ?total conversions? ? entirely new game scenarios, such
as Barney Doom or Star Trek Doom. These player creations were
circulated on BBSs and the Internet.

Players wrote detailed documents (text files) outlining Doom gameplay
strategies and game programming and modification techniques, which could be
downloaded from Usenet newsgroups, the Internet and IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
A famous example is the 55,000-word Doom FAQ written by then 14-year-old
student Hank Leukart. Personal and community communication between FPS gamers
was made possible through Usenet and IRC.

Both multiplayer gaming and an active mod development scene continued and grew
through id?s subsequent titles: Doom II (1994), Quake (1996),
Quake II (1997) and Quake III: Arena (1999), and the development
of competing FPS titles, such as Unreal (1998) and Half-Life
(1999). The popularity of multiplayer FPS gaming saw the development of clans
(groups of gamers who play together as a team ? both in online games and
at real-life LAN meetings) and a shift towards team-based games, which are now
by far the most popular (eg Half-Life Counter-Strike (1999), Medal
of Honor Allied Assault (2001), Battlefield 1942 (2002).

Current Manifestations of the FPS Gaming Community

Online game servers, while used primarily for gameplay, are also a social venue
for gamers. Players may type messages to each other in the game, and indeed
this is an important part of strategic communication, especially in team games.
Players also chat, educate each other in the finer points of gameplay, and exchange
abuse, jokes and information, depending on the level of seriousness of the game.
It is possible to talk as much in an online FPS game as in IRC, although excessive
chatter may be frowned upon, and ?spamming? (excessive text messaging)
can cause a player to be silenced or ?kicked? from the game. Players
may join a server game just to talk to a friend, or to invite players to another
server. In-game voice communication has been made possible in recent years by
ancillary programs, again developed by gamers, (such as BattleCom, which was
later purchased by Microsoft to make GameVoice) and has been incorporated
in some recent games such as Tribes2.

There are thousands of websites devoted to FPS gaming: gaming news and reviews
sites (eg Blue?s News http://www.bluesnews.com/),
online league and game ladder sites (for both individuals and clans) such as
the Online Gamers League (http://www.worldogl.com/)
and BarrysWorld (http://leagues.barrysworld.net/),
individual clan pages (which provide clan information and contact details for
match challenges), to large multi-purpose portals such as PlanetQuake (http://www.planetquake.com/)
or the Australian Ausgamers site (http://www.ausgamers.com/),
which are used by the community to report news, exchange information, publicise
LAN meetings and online competitions, download software and files (latest patches,
maps, models, skins, sounds) and provide hosting for hundreds of smaller clan
and special-interest websites (Ausgamers alone hosts some 2500 clan pages and
claims 65,000 registered members). Many of the larger sites host discussion
forums where news items, gaming and technical subjects and a wide variety of
other issues may be discussed, and provide real-time chat and links to associated
IRC channels.

Webpages are the public face of the game community, and provide education resources
for players in gameplay strategies, tactics, etiquette, game customisation,
development, and allow discussion and debate of these issues. They also allow
special interest groups within the gaming community to have an online presence
and voice in the community, such as www.gamegirlz.com,
which raises issues faced by the relatively small number of female players in
the FPS scene, and general issues of gender and computer gaming.

IRC is still popular with FPS gamers, for chat, clan meetings, technical support,
game and social organisation, and FTP (file transfer) access, but not as much
as in its heyday when it was one of the few technologies providing real-time
communication and access to FTP sites. The release of the highly anticipated
first Quake test in February 1996 saw an IRC record set for the largest channel
ever, of 1556 users on EFNet#quake ? 10% of the total number of IRC users
at the time (http://www.the-project.org/history.html,
Mar 5, 2003). In 1999 the IRC network EnterTheGame was established by members
of the gaming community to offer gamers a better place to gather and chat, setup
matches, and meet like-minded people on-line. Instant messaging programs (eg
ICQ, Trillian) are popular for chat between individuals or small groups.

Gaming-specific communication technologies have also been developed by the
FPS gaming community. One of the most notable is GameSpy, a server-query utility
that was developed by gamers (beginning as QSpy for Quake), facilitating player
access to over 40,000 active FPS game servers worldwide, and has evolved to
include buddy lists, real-time chat and file-transfer functions, and support
for other game genres (Vrignaud, http://www.cdmag.com/articles/019/077/otn_104.html,
Mar 13, 2003).

Influences on Community

It is important to note that all these online manifestations of the FPS gaming
community have developed independently of game development companies. Game servers
are run by gamers themselves who have access to suitable hardware and connections,
or by internet service providers keen to attract clientele. Web pages, discussion
forums and chat venues are all run by players. Clans and competitions are organised
independently, as are online gaming ladders and the majority of real-life LAN
(Local Area Network) meetings. There are dozens of organised LAN gatherings
held in Australia every weekend, attracting between 50 and 400 players, and
in January 2003, 1000 gamers met in Melbourne for the inaugural "Big Day
In", the largest event of its kind held in the Southern Hemisphere.

Like most LAN events, QuakeCon, the large annual gaming gathering held in Mesquite
Texas, and now organised in association with id Software, had its genesis in
online community activities. In 1996, regular habitués of the IRC channel
EFNet#quake decided to organise a real-life meeting and pilgrimage to their
gaming Mecca ? Mesquite, Texas, the home of id Software. Originally planned
for 50 people, word spread on the internet and eventually over 150 gamers from
the US and Canada (and their computers) met at a hotel convention centre outside
Dallas. To the surprise of organisers, the id Software developers, curious to
see this culture their games had spawned, turned up on the last day, took attendees
on a tour of their offices and paid for the gamers? convention room hire
(author?s interviews with QuakeCon veterans Wino and Yossman).
Since then QuakeCon has become an annual event attended by over 3000 players
from around the world, attracts corporate sponsorship from id and other gaming
and hardware companies, and features FPS competitions with prize money totalling
$US100,000 (in 2002).

Players have developed intricate rules and etiquette governing gameplay and
social behaviour, based on fundamental principles of fair play and general social
cooperation. Clans in particular tend to have stringent rules governing members?
behaviour, both in games and in other online communication forums, and players
may be suspended or expelled from their clans for transgressions of these.

Issues of cheating in multiplayer are mostly played out at the community level.
While developers try to make games as cheat-proof as possible, the innovative
and creative ethos of the community means that game hackers are always looking
for new challenges, and players have developed cheat programs that, for example,
automate aiming and firing of weapons, make walls invisible, or extend player
models so they can be seen from any location in the game. The development of
cheats is done much in the same spirit of other hacking and cracking activities
? for the challenge and kudos. Anti-cheating programs are developed in
the same way, leading to an ongoing battle of wits at a code-writing level.
Major anti-cheating innovations such as PunkBuster have been developed by amateur
programmers in the game community, and later incorporated into official game
updates (eg in Quake III: Arena 1.32).

This sense of self governance, combined with the creative input of players,
has led to a high level of involvement and investment by players in an online
community that is vocal, influential, highly social and considers itself self-regulating
and, to a certain degree, self-determining.

FPS gamers develop gaming identities which are used across various media. Online
gaming culture, like BBS culture before it, requires the use of in-game names
(or "handles" as they are sometimes called). Players frequently
have a single online name that is used for games, IRC, email addresses, account
names and log-ins, instant messaging programs (ICQ, Trillian), web discussion
forums, and other, non-gaming sites. On IRC, which requires unique log-ins,
names may be registered with Nickserv for security and to ensure that one?s
chosen name is always available. Gaming names are also used in real-life gaming
gatherings such as LAN meetings where it is rare to hear players refer to each
other by their given names (if they are known at all). Online names are important
in tying down a concrete identity in a virtual world and gamers place much value
on their online reputations.

Influences on Game Development

Unlike the film, television and music industries, which tend to actively discourage
fans from modifying content by adhering blindly to rigid interpretations of
copyright, FPS game developers have actively encouraged the creative efforts
of players. Because of early decisions made by game developers id Software to
make the source code of their games and game editing tools available to the
public, an active "mod scene" has developed around FPS games. The
mod scene is not just an additional hobby available for gamers, but an essential
element of the current gaming scene. While a company might produce 10-20 models
and maps for a game, those most frequently used on game servers are selected
from the hundreds of player-made variations. The quality and quantity of player-generated
game content often far surpasses that of the original development teams. Some
of the more successful mods have gone on to be greater successes than the original
game itself.

Counter-Strike (1999) ? a mission-based team-play mod for Valve?s
Half-Life, which has transcended mere mod status to go on to become
the most popular multiplayer FPS game of all time ? was developed by British
Columbia student Minh "Gooseman" Le, and became so popular it was
eventually purchased by Valve and released on CD in 2000, selling over a million
copies even though it has always been free and legally available for download.
For over three years now, Counter-Strike has eclipsed every other online FPS
game in popularity. There are currently over 20,000 Counter-Strike
game servers in existence, with 60,000 to 80,000 players online at any one time,
30 times more than the numbers playing any other FPS game (http://www.gamespy.com/stats,
Mar 5, 2003).

The success of the mod scene has led to major changes in the relationship between
game developers and their audience. There is a high level of communication between
gamers and ?official? developers; information regarding game development
is made available to the public through ".plan" files and interviews,
and players have an unprecedented level of feedback and suggestion to game developers.
Gaming webpages provide gamers and game developers with independent critical
reviews and feedback from the gaming community, in contrast to the more diplomatic
and sometimes obsequious reviews that appear in print publications intent on
promoting games and pleasing advertisers.

Developers may also participate in online discussion forums with fans, although
this has become less common as the industry has grown. In the mid-90s, id Software
developers would frequent the Undernet IRC #quake channel and provide information
and partake in discussions about Quake?s development. This open communication
between the software developers and their potential market contributed to the
heightened interest in Quake during its infancy. Gamer-developer communications
now tend to be mediated through major gaming news websites ? which may
host moderated online chat sessions, or solicit questions from fans which are
then presented to a developer in an interview. Individual developers, major
ones at least, no longer give out their email addresses; some have complained
of receiving thousands of emails a week from gamers and amateur mod developers
(QuakeCon, 2001).

The increased input of players into these games has also had a marked influence
on the way these games are developed. Whereas once a game was developed to the
point of a "beta", before being released to a few select "beta
testers" who would "bug test" the game before the final, commercial
release, game "tests" are now being released over the net at earlier
stages in development, so that thousands of players around the world can test
the game and provide feedback to the developers. This also allows mod authors
to get an early start on their development of their add-ons to the game. Earlier
unofficial alpha tests (devoid of proper player models or texture graphics)
are also leaked onto the net, much to the chagrin of developers, and to the
delight of gamers eager to get a glimpse of "the next big thing",
regardless of quality.

In February 1996, months before the commercial release of Quake, id
Software released three levels over the net to allow gamers to bug-test network
play. Two days later, game hackers had not only discovered bugs, but provided
patches to fix them; hundreds of patches and hacks were sent to id in the following
months. Users had even figured out how to activate features in Quake
the developers had not yet thought were functional. One id developer was quoted
as saying: "The joke around here now is [that] we can let the rest of
the world finish Quake for us" (Laidlaw, 1996:189). In 1999,
following the release of the first official test for id's Quake III Arena,
(the first of a planned four tests before the release of the "Q3 Demo")
id developer Graeme Devine received over 6,000 feedback emails (http://www.telefragged.com/pels/interviews/graemedevine.shtml,
Jun 1, 1999).

Some level of involvement in the mod scene or other creative, gaming-related
projects is common for FPS players. In an email survey I conducted in 1999 of
Quake II players, 83% had completed some sort of creative project related
to the game, from creating webpages to model and level design. Creative input
is an important part of player involvement in the FPS scene, and allows players
to see themselves as playing a recognised role in the games they enjoy and in
the gaming culture. As Counter-Strike developer Gooseman explains:

My initial motivation [for making mods] was probably the same
as anyone else involved in the mod scene. I just wanted to customize
the game to fit my vision of what a game should be. First and
foremost, it is MY vision. not anyone else’s. I don't spend
10+ hours a week working on a mod for free just to make a mod
that satisfies everyone, I make a mod that I am happy with and
if someone else happens to like it, then that’s a bonus.
(http://csnation.counter-strike.net/articles.php/1/print/,
Mar 1, 2003)

Apart from the lucky and talented few for whom participation in
the mod scene is an entry into professional game development, most
gamers receive no financial
or professional reward for their contributions to the mod scene, but enjoy
the creative challenge, recognition from the game community, and
participation in
an open-source, code-sharing culture, that John Perry Barlow has described
as an "economy which consists almost entirely of information" (http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/
HTML/idea_economy_article.html, Apr 21, 1999).

Mod development is now the most common route of entry into professional game
design. Access to open-source development tools and online distribution channels
for completed works have allowed young, talented developers to enter the industry
judged solely of the quality of their work, despite a lack of formal training
and industry contacts and in spite of other obstacles such as geographical location.
It is not uncommon for a game development team to have members located all over
the world, communicating and exchanging work files online, and young Australian
developers in particular have benefited from such arrangements.

Online communication has also had an impact on recruitment practices within
the industry. David "Zoid" Kirsch, creator of the Quake multiplayer
mod, "ThreeWave Capture the Flag" (1996) sent a brief press release
regarding ThreeWave CTF to the major Quake news sites, which caught the attention
of id?s John Carmack who offered him a job creating the CTF mod for Quake
II. "Id's hiring process was rather strange," according to Kirsch.
"Honestly, there wasn?t really an interview per se for getting my
job. The majority of meetings were over the Internet. I only met John in person
a couple of times" (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/04/16/modding/,
Mar 1, 2003).

Amateur game development has led to greater creativity and experimentation
within the industry. Whereas major game developers are constrained by marketing,
censorship and strict financial considerations that affect game development,
amateur mod developers are free to experiment with new ideas and release them
online to gauge public response. Because online game servers may be set up by
anyone with the necessary hardware and network access, and are run independently
of the game industry, server administrators are free to install any games, mods,
maps, or rule variations they like ? according to personal preference
or in response to player demand. Software companies are then able to invest
in ideas that have already been tested on the market, and develop and distribute
them further. Software distribution methods have also been influenced by lessons
learnt from the FPS gaming scene, as companies have discovered the benefits
to be gained from giving a portion of their products away for free.

While the success of the FPS scene has had major benefits regarding the evolution
of computer games, gaming culture, and the online community, it is not necessarily
perceived in a positive light by the game industry in general. The most profitable
games for the industry are those that are largely disposable ? played
once and abandoned for the next release (http://www.gamestudies.org/0102/editorial.html,
Mar 3, 2003). The sustained longevity of a great game such as Counter-Strike
means that gamers playing Counter-Strike predominantly or exclusively for years
at a time are not buying many other games, and this has led to some tensions
in the industry, in which community building has been seen by some as being
a little too successful.

Summary

In this brief exploration of the online gaming community surrounding FPS games,
it can be seen that gamers have developed a highly participatory culture from
their gaming practices. While the concept of "participatory media"
is familiar from research into television fan communities, I would argue that
these games are "co-creative media"; neither developers nor players
can be solely responsible for production of the final assemblage regarded as
"the game", it requires the input of both.